One of the more divisive, recent issues on the left is the Syrian conflict. All sides will, for the most part, argue anti-imperialism, but take it a step further in how they view the situation or what sides they take. You’ve got the anti-imperialist, unbridled support of Assad and his regime.. You’ve got the anti-imperialist, yet anti-Assad.. Etc etc. One of the most significant problems I’ve seen emerge is pro-regime comrades explicitly cite sources that either have direct conspiracy theory backgrounds or even fascist associations. Disappointingly, many leftists don’t seem to be too phased when confronted with this reality, but here I’m going to provide a list of some popular sources and what’s problematic about them.

Eva Bartlett. Bartlett recently gained a lot of traction for a YouTube video, of which she sits on a press conference organized by the Syrian mission to the United Nations (funny enough, the UN itself gets questioned, but not the people it offers a platform for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). She hammers in on western media bias and supporters rally behind her video. The problem? Bartlett is a frequent writer for a conspiracy website, the Centre for Research on Globalization which refers to itself as “a major news source on the New World Order” while simultaneously offering a platform to Infowars’ and Prison Planet’s alt-right (white nationalist) lead, Paul Joseph Watson. She’s just recently been hosted on Ryan Dawson’s podcast, a known Holocaust denier.

Not only does it host Watson, it is referenced by many alt-right figures and web sources. To what extent can we trust the legitimacy of someone openly working for a conspiracy theorist website that’s heavily referenced by white nationalists? Apparently, for some leftists, we can trust a western white woman as not being western propaganda (is fascist/conspiracy propaganda not considered western..? Food for thought)

Tim Anderson. Anderson, also a writer for Centre for Research on Globalization, wrote the book The Dirty War on Syria. It’s been offered as a source on what happening in Syria, of which I’ll get back to after I reveal his white national associations and religious terrorism background. In this twitter link is a photo of Anderson, with Daily Stormer’s Nathan Sykes, Iggy Gavrilidis (Golden Dawn) & Dr. Jim Saleam (AFP). It may just be a photo, but coupled with The Australia First Party (AFP) making facebook posts about Anderson’s written works on Syria being important, it’s clear that there is a connection between the two not just in friendly commentary, but actual physical meetings.

Not only does it comment on his book, but the AFP Facebook page makes nationalist arguments as they reference Anderson’s facebook posts in conjunction. A problematic relationship to say the least for a quality “left” source. Never mind that Tim Anderson was a part of a fanatical religious sect that committed terrorist actions. I did say I’d get further into his book background, but all there really is to say that the reviews are only done by the Centre, which makes sense when you want a diverse opinion of a book.

Partisangirl. Also known as Syrian Girl Partisan. She’s been a major source for pro-regime leftists, despite the fact she makes YouTube videos about the NewWorldOrder (dang Alex Jones hosting) and Rothschild conspiracy claims, which can only be anti-Semitic. She has been featured on David Duke’s (a white nationalist/supremacist) podcast to add on to her pretty horrid track record.

She also is anti-Rojava, to which of those of you who may not know, is a leftist revolution occurring within Northern Syria.

These are four popular figures on the pro-regime front, I’ll happily research into more individuals as are brought to my attention. With that said, how the fuck can my comrades casually follow and refer to sources that are not only white nationalists, fascists, work for conspiracy websites, and anti-Semitic, but offering such bullshit takes? Where is your critique at?

Edit: Added in the David Duke piece, revealed to me through Pinko_snob. Part two is located here. Since then, I’ve also been informed that Eva Bartlett was hosted by Holocaust Denier, Ryan Dawson, of which will be linked above.

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Ostensible Leftists uniting with, even shading into, explicit Rightists has a material explanation (other than the obvious one, no doubt true here and there, and probably especially true of some of the figures cited here, that they have simply gone on the Russian/Syrian payroll).

The interesting question is why sincere Leftists end up as apologists for regimes that would and do kill their own Leftists as well as miscellaneous intellectuals, trade unionists, etc. Of course such apologetics were first developed by supporters of the USSR and those movements in the Third World aligned with it … but at least those countries and movements paid lip service to world socialism. The Ba’athists — if the Syrian regime still pays even lip-service to that ideology — are a long way from that … in fact, they hang their Communists.

So … why do ‘Marxists’ of various sorts become enthusiasts or at least excuse-makers for regimes that actually detest any form of Marxism, even explicitly theocratic ones like Iran?

In my opinion, it’s due to the failure of the working class in the advanced countries to engage in class struggle to such an extent that would-be anti-capitalists could think that workingclass revolution in those countries is a realistic prospect. This has been true for nearly fifty years.

Having given up on, or postponed to an indefinite future, working-class revolution in the advanced countries, the would-be revolutionists seek some sort of substitute: identity politics is one outlet, becoming cheerleaders for Third World guerilla forces is another. And now we see a third variant: enemy-of-my-enemy logic, which, abstractly, is not ruled out for revolutionists (it’s what the Kurds are doing, after all). But we don’t see it practiced as Lenin’s willingness to “accept arms from the Anglo-French bandits”, but rather accompanied by apologetics for, even celebration of, banditry.

Sometimes this substitution is conscious, sometimes not, sometimes rationalized as the belief that until ‘imperialism’ is defeated, the workers in the advanced countries will be bought off, so first we must defeat imperialism, and then we will see the radicalization of the working class.

However, we seldom see much logical consistency in people who have taken this course: it’s also accompanied by a static, good/bad view of the world, rather than one which looks for contradictions, change, opportunity to push the historic process forward.

I offer this view as an outsider — a ‘consistent democrat’ rather than a Marxist (although I am aware of the historical use of this phrase to mean the latter).

Thank you, David. I appreciate the website, I’ll do my best to take a look through. This blew up more than I anticipated and I’m trying to tackle more to help out. What’s really intriguing here is that Bartlett and Vanessa Beely, in my second follow up post, have both been parties to a delegation of the World Peace Council (the American subsection). They’re from the old school, initially created by the Soviet Union, but they’re the type of anti-imperialist that demands the release of Milosevic. It seems what we have here are anti-imperialist of the “not even genocide can change our mind” variety. I’m concerned that many of the old political views of being in a dichotomy, which was problematic in the first place, is enhanced by the ever increasing inability for their to be a dichotomy when the situations are far too dynamic. It’s not East Vs West, it’s more dynamic, and old school ideologues can’t keep up.

Hey Sol, great work. Keep it up. I help out with a site called http://www.syriasources.org originated by Shon Meckfessel that my org, Syria Solidarity International, uses as an aggregator of all kinds of Syria info, including disinformation. Take a look sometime and if you run across someone not represented there or not represented to the same depth as your researches, let us know. You can find me easily on FB among the David McDonalds by adding Seattle to the search.

The links to their sordid right-wing connections are quite valuable. It also foreshadows what I think is going to be a massive shift from left to right of a whole bunch of forces whom we used to call comrades. This cannot, however, be a new rot. It must go back somewhere and I am trying to figure out the politics of all that. Any suggestions you have on that front are very welcome.

I was trying to avoid comments all together, but this has been a really interesting resource. I had made the Ben Norton connection with a friend when I was going through his twitter. There was no explanation of the transition, just all of a sudden with the Salon job stopped entirely with Anti-Assadist views. Blumenthal, I couldn’t find one, but you’ve offered a pretty good area to investigate. Thank you.

5. Max Blumenthal. A man who made a name for himself as a supporter of the Palestinians and resigned from a position at Al-Akhbar newspaper for its pro-Assad line did a mysterious 180 on the Syria issue after a Kremlin-financed trip to Moscow to the same conference attended by Jill Stein and Gen. Mike Flynn. David Duke has taken to quoting Blumenthal approvingly on Twitter on the issue of Syria.

6. Benjamin Norton. Like Blumenthal, Norton mysteriously reversed himself after getting a job at Salon.com (where he was fired from). A quick glance at his Twitter feed will show that he routinely smears opponents as ‘Qatari-funded’ instead of dealing with their arguments, a favorite tactic of conspiracy theorists.

everyone knows that eva bartlett is a conspiracy nutt and lies so often, it is a waste of time listening to her.
her ingaza blog tries to smear all and i mean all big human rights organisations as western propaganda tools.
here video has so many debunked “facts” from different factcheckers. she never replies to the reports and bring evidence.
snopes, pulsemedia, channel4, mimikama (german factchecker) all exposed her lies.
she is a worthless piece of trash.
that’s why she gets interviewed for RT on syria. that’s the experts that talk for the russian viewpoint lol.